As the Affordable Care Act--otherwise known as ObamaCare--begins to be implemented, we are seeing its first big consequence: it is making care less affordable.

The New York Times reports that "Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration's health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers."

"Even though"? In fact, Obamacare is simply doing what a lot of people predicted it would. Critics of ObamaCare warned that it would produce precisely the kind of premium increases we are now seeing, for precisely the reasons that new reports are now citing.

I was one of those critics, and I take no joy in pointing out that we told you so.

In 2009, as ObamaCare was being crammed through Congress, I gave three reasons for predicting disaster.

The first is "guaranteed issue," which requires insurance companies to cover you for a pre-existing condition. This forces insurance companies to take on extra costs, while reducing the incentive for healthy people to pay their insurance premiums. Why pay premiums for years, if you can just wait until you're already sick to buy coverage? So insurers are mandated to take on extra costs while losing revenues. As I wrote back in 2009, "Rather than increasing the number of insured by making health insurance more affordable, this bill makes health insurance more expensive and increases the incentive to simply drop your insurance until you need someone to pay for your medical bills."

Prepare for first-degree sticker shock if you own health insurance in Alaska, when major changes of Obamacare come into play.

While the act will produce winners and losers, and uncertainty will reign until the changes are in place Jan. 1, the state’s largest insurance company already anticipates having to raise premiums on thousands of Alaskans by heart-stopping amounts.

[SNIP]

“For one thing, they’ll have no waiting period to get insurance. Someone who just got bad news from the heart doctor can walk into an insurance office and order a policy, Davis said. ‘It’s as if could you go home, see your house on fire, call Allstate and say, “Cover my home,”’ Davis said.

“With medical bills easily reaching into the millions of dollars, a few of those cases could quickly add up, significantly boosting overall rates.”

Health insurance premiums rose in 2012 for the majority of people covered in the state-regulated individual and small employer markets, according to the state Department of Banking and Insurance.

Premiums have risen in New Jersey and nationwide for years, and health care experts say the rising cost of medical care, coupled with new federal rules that increase the services that health insurers are required to include in the health plans they sell, continue to drive up premiums.

About 650,000 New Jerseyans have employer-sponsored coverage through the state’s small employer market, for employers with fewer than 50 workers. About half the premiums increases in that sector were less than 10 percent, while the remainder of the increases averaged 15 percent, according to DOBI.

About 140,000 New Jerseyans are covered through the individual market, where all premiums increases in 2012 were under 10 percent, according to DOBI. Premiums rose less than 1 percent, or decreased, for the most popular plan in the individual market, the Horizon Basic and Essential plan, which provides a less extensive menu of benefits at a lower price than the typical health plan. According to DOBI, more than half of those covered in the individual market use the Basic and Essential plan.

Christine Stearns, vice president of health and legal affairs for the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, said the rates reported by DOBI “are consistent with what I have been hearing from employers.”

Went to the hospital’s urgent care clinic yesterday. Waited 4 hours. Lots of people there signing up for free health care. I was told the Dr’s offices are being overwhelmed now and there are long waits to see physicians. I don’t mean at urgent care, I mean any Dr’s appointment.

Obviously ObamaKKKare is going to run insurance rates sky high ~ to the point where no one can afford them.

It is unlikely the US government has or will have the resources to subsidize alternative forms of insurance ~ which may well end up privatizing the provisioning of all medical care in the US ~ straight up patient to doctor type care.

The consequences will be that the people the Democrats claimed they wanted to help ~ those without insurance, or those with pre-existing conditions ~ will be without any degree of medical care and will be dying in the streets.

Philosophically I don't have a problem with that ~ provided the costs of medical care come down ~ which they will once it's privatized again.

BTW, there is currently a flu epidemic on. That was Saturday. People get so panicky when they can’t stop going and coughing at the same time, over and over and over ~ so they somehow figure they can go to a hospital emergency room and somebody will know what to do about it.

43% increase in my employee plan from last year. Or we could opt for the “no premium” plan with a $3000 deductible. In fact, for us, the high deductible plan was a better financial choice. Affordable? Depends on the definition.....

This might seem like a stupid question. But what if someone doesn’t pay? If they get a $750 “fine” and can’t pay it? If they are already on the system are they exempt, and only the people who are trying to make it would be prosecuted?

19
posted on 01/20/2013 7:24:17 PM PST
by Wisconsinlady
(The 2nd amendment is NOT about hunting-but protection from a tyrannical govt)

As I wrote back in 2009, "Rather than increasing the number of insured by making health insurance more affordable, this bill makes health insurance more expensive and increases the incentive to simply drop your insurance until you need someone to pay for your medical bills."

Well duh, that's the whole purpose of it, so it can "fail" and the state minions can say "well, we tried that, guess we just need to go to single payer socialized medicine"...

From the article: But I don't think that's any kind of mystery. The consequences of ObamaCare--particularly the built-in "death spiral"--are so predictable that I don't think the legislation's architects can profess innocence. From the beginning, I have had suspicions, so to speak, that a stable health insurance industry was not the goal of ObamaCare. Rather, I warned: "It is an attempt to turn health insurance into what the left really wants: another welfare program in which everyone is entitled to free benefits, mandated by the government."

It is obvious that the "architects" want to go one step further. Once the government is the single payer except for a handful of plans, they will dictate terms to the health care industry. Unlike today's debacle in Medicare in which the hospitals can shift costs onto better paying private plans, that option will no longer exist. So hospitals will shut down and be replaced by government run clinics "for the children, etc".

That will be the death of our health care system, a lot of vulnerable patients and a large portion of the economy including the mainly American industries that supply health care. More than likely the architects will pick up the slack by importing deadly "medicines" from China and foreign workers (rather than Mexicans, your pills will probably be pushed by someone in a burka).

I should add that pills are cheap. Not the ones you might actually need like a new cancer drug. Those will simply no longer exist. But take a look inside any nominally government-run institution like many nursing homes are today. The pills they push are happy pills that keep the patients loopy and docile. They cost a buck or two a month. They are often abused by the staff and/or sold on the street for a profit.

The final step in Obamacare is to replace any actual care that costs money with happy pills. DId you just pull a ligament? No MRI for you, or if you get an MRI it will be read by a government-appointed specialist who has been mandated to give you the "right" treatment (the government will use stories about children who were denied the "right" treatment by evil profit-seeking medicine). The right treatment in your case will be happy pills because surgery costs money. Physical therapy costs a lot too compared to pain pills.

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